Navy Lodge Pensacola

Pensacola... the show was good, the hotel was horrible.

For the record, Pensacola does not count as Florida. The panhandle is not Florida. I know Florida. Pensacola is Alabama light.

I couldn't even find a Publix nearby!

On to New Orleans!!!!!

:)

De camino hacia New Orleans, paramos a visitar dos Parques Nacionales, el Big Lagoon, uno de los mejores parques en la costa de los USA, y el Tarkiln Bayou Park, caracterizado por las raras especies de plantas como algunas carnivoras.

On the way to New Orleans, we stopped to visit two national parks, Big Lagoon, one of the best parks on the coast of the USA, and Tarkiln Bayou Park, featuring the rare species of plants and some carnivores.

... roasted red peppers and artichoke hearts and mozzarella cheese. Delicious! And for the main course mushroom and chicken pasta. Mhm....slept in a bed and it was wonderful. Torrential downpour the next morning. But clear skies after that on our way to Louisiana!!!

not good news to report today. I left pensacola FL this morning bound for Miami. Fate had another plan in store...5 or six miles east on I-10 traffic stopped cold. Uuugh...i hate that. Stop and go traffic and no lane splitting makes me cranky. Each time i have to stop theres a high chance of me losing my balance and falling over. The next thing that happened was the state troopers directed everyone off at SR 90, which parallels I-10 but goes thru the little towns and has ...

... my hand is barely sore and not red at all. Very cool invention and costs about 5 bones.

As for todays ride, it was uneventful. I left Pearland TX around 1130am local time. Got really sleepy after an hour or so and pulled off to have a snack my aunt packed for me. After that i was fine for a few more hours but then I started nodding off again. Son of a! Exited in Lafayette LA and had some greasy ass chicken. I threw most of it ...

... a very cool bar that had live music every day and served Bushwackers.....these were their signature drinks. They looked exactly like wet beach sand and left you feeling numb inside. Customers were limited to two large Bushwackers or 5 small ones a day. Drinking more than the recommended dose is not wise and this was proved when a 50 year old redneck woman face planted into the sand after drinking 3 large ones. She made quite a thud as she hit the beach but her husband ...

Well, this is where we called home until the economy crashed and took my business with it. But that gave us an opportunity and impetus to seek broader learning in Saigon. Of all the places we've lived this is at the top. On the bay, with a yard, dog....the American dream. Quiet town living, safety, low cost of living, only the occasional hurricane. It is a good place. We miss our friends and will return.

I met my good friend Mark in Gulf Shores to mark the bookend of my trip. We had a great time with his family doing the normal Gulf Shores things like lots of fishing, talking and whatnot. I did get a few pictures here, but at this ...

... wikipedia.org/wiki/Spitsberge n Ever since I was a child and heard about Spitsbergen Island, I had hoped to make a visit there. That trip came true in end of July and the first of August of 2003. Jean and I flew from Pensacola into Oslo, Norway, and from there traveled up to our namesake. We landed in the town of Longyearbyen. Longyear was an explorer from Illinois, and the "byen" was added when Norway ...

... and eventually found signs leading to the beach. Pensacola's beach is absolutely gorgeous. It is all white sand and clear blue water. I took a picture of one part of the water. I don't know if you can see or not, but there are large dark "clouds" in the water interspersed with lighter areas where you can see through to the sand. It looks like seaweed, sort of, from the beach. I watched a woman wade out in the water (because she was walking through a ...